


Like a River Flows (Surely to the Sea)

by Etwas_Schlau



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Changing Tenses, College, Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Idiots in Love, Mutual Pining, POV Second Person, Past Tense, Romance, Roommates, Sharing a Room, Slice of Life, Songfic, Strangers to Lovers, Two Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-19 19:18:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15516747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etwas_Schlau/pseuds/Etwas_Schlau
Summary: The chronicles of Lapis and Peridot, from their meeting via pure luck, to becoming best friends, then lovers, then so much more.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Note:** I do not own Steven Universe. All rights to the cartoon and its characters belong to Rebecca Sugar.
> 
> i thought i was done with this hyperfixation but rebecca sugar drew me back in
> 
> I wrote this for my ex-gf but it's still a favourite of mine, I hope you enjoy.

When you met it was all fun and games. 

Your roommate from last semester had transferred elsewhere and she was your new dorm mate, a freshman with bottle blonde hair hair and round, bespectacled green eyes and surprisingly similar interests.  _ Peridot Olivine;  _ she was polite, sweet, warm, and also a massive nerd. From the moment she’d moved in, you got along like you’d known each other for years.

You would carry on absent conversations as you both came and went, when you were free at the same time you would watch Camp Pining Hearts together (a passion only she knew you had) whilst criticising the writing, when she struggled with particularly tough Psych 101 homework you would help her, and she would return the favour with calculus. You fell into a comfortable symbiosis, and soon you knew her as one of your best friends.

Until you developed a crush on her.

You’d realized how far gone for her you were embarrassingly late into the process of falling head over heels. As first semester finals loomed, combined with the stress of extracurriculars, the two of you had hardly seen each other for well over a week, the longest drought since you’d known each other. To celebrate having some modicum of free time once more, you spent the evening together.

Well, to be fair, you’d planned to spend a little time with her before one of you inevitably got tired or some other obligation called your attention. But that moment didn’t come; you brought her to a roller skating rink just off of campus and didn’t leave until the it had closed. You’d shared a lukewarm footlong chili dog and a plate of nachos smothered in artificial cheese product, then skated clumsily together to poppy synthesized 80s music.

The food was cheap and terrible, and you both crashed and fell into each other and the wall and the floor in your beat-up, rented skates with wheels not nearly tight enough. She got rug burn in the crook of her elbows from clutching the carpeted rink walls and you’d fallen flat on your face hard enough to bloody your own nose. Logically, you should have had a horrible time, but you couldn’t have thought of a better way to spend your night. 

Seeing Peridot’s smiling face, laughing and quipping and making snide comments, hearing her cute, nasal voice and shocked yelps as her feet flew out from under herself; it made your cold heart beat with a vigour you hadn’t felt in years. At the end of the night, you’d shakily attempted something similar to a slow dance to fit the quiet, post-party songs playing. You laughed at yourselves as you noticed the only other people left in the rink were a pair of sixth grade boys who were, quite literally, skating circles around you. 

The shop owner had come out from the back at midnight, shutting off the sound system and announcing closing. You’d turned your skates in and walked home in the cool night air, poking fun as Peridot shivered until you gave up your hoodie for her to wrap around her scrawny shoulders. 

Upon making it back to the dorm, you both exhaustedly fell into your respective beds. Peridot’s soft snores arose only a few minutes after her mumbled goodnight, and you found yourself tiredly blinking at the ceiling as you waited to succumb to sleep. You’d spent more time than could possibly be considered reasonable reliving the events of the day; from the dance-skating and the shared dinner to the worried doting Peridot had done as she'd cleaned and bandaged your nose. 

As you felt yourself begin to drift off, the one thought in your mind was that you felt happier than you’d ever been in your entire life.

Your eyes had snapped open in the darkness.

_ Oh, shit… _

The next morning when you’d awoken, you’d told yourself you’d have to make some kind of change, that you’d have to keep away from her to stop yourself from falling any farther. You couldn't have feelings for her! She was your friend and nothing more, and it wouldn’t work out even if she  _ were _ interested. 

She’d come to your school from a state away, where her entire extended family and everything she knew was, and you knew she’d inevitably want to go back. There was no way she’d rewrite her life plan to wait for you to finish school and earn your doctorate (something even you doubted your ability to achieve.) It wouldn't go anywhere. It couldn’t.

The next morning when you’d seen her sleep-slackened face bid you a grumbly good morning, you’d felt that comfortable warmth bloom in your chest again and a taunting quip toward the disheveled state of her hair had slipped from your lips before you could stop it. She’d rolled her eyes and flashed a middle finger as she trudged toward the bathroom, and your face hurt from the grin that overtook it.

Yeah, there was no way you were going to stop hanging out with her.

Maybe it would be fine, you told yourself. It may not be likely but it was certainly possible. You could go on as friends, only with the small hurdle of one party being madly in love with the other, right? 

Yeah okay, it didn’t sound as convincing when you thought it out. But one thing was certain, you couldn’t give up having Peridot in your life. There wasn’t a chance, and you also couldn’t bear the thought of ruining your friendship by trying to interject some crazy idea of romance. You could suppress your feelings; it would all be fine.

Okay,  _ maybe _ things hadn’t gone exactly fine. When her birthday rolled around, you shelled out almost every cent you had to your name in order to buy her a perfect gift, certainly more than any innocent college friend would offer. It had proved very much worth it when you had given it to her, however; she had adored it and beamed gratefulness and affection in bucketfuls. No amount of money was an object compared to the pride that swelled in your chest to know you had made her happy.

You found yourself getting braver as time went on and your feelings only reinforced themselves into your mind. You would wink and joke and flirt, and blush at Peridot’s occasional reciprocation. You forced her into listening to songs you liked as a guise to share love songs that made you think of her when they came on the radio. You traded the odd ‘I love you’ during nights spent together, but it was bittersweet because you knew she didn’t mean the same thing you did when she said it. 

You found yourself spending a night or two every other week falling into a depression about your situation. You were in love with a girl who would never feel the same about you, she was going to have fun with you as a friend until it wasn’t convenient anymore, eventually she would move on with her life and find new people that meant more to her than you could ever possibly hope to. You’d never admit it, but your pillowcases felt salty tears more than once in the dead of night as you contemplated the inevitable time when  _ Peridot Olivine _ would be little more than a name of someone you once knew.

But you were fine, things were fine! Or at least that’s what you told yourself when you took a discreet photo of her deeply entranced in a game of Overwatch and set it as your phone background. And when you made plans to travel with her over the summer that didn’t really carry any weight. And when you “ironically” greeted her on Valentine’s Day with a bright green-dyed rose between your teeth and a pile of shoddily-made construction paper valentines. And when you bit your tongue to keep from moaning her name each night as you came beneath your own fingers.

You found a small way to outlet your passion when your creative writing professor came down with the flu that winter and cancelled that day’s lecture, sending an email to the class instructing you simply to write a short story about someone you loved. You had seen the opportunity and put months of longing into four hundred fifty-three words that Rose Quartz had said was the best work from the whole class. 

You pinned the assignment with the A grade enclosed in a star drawn in pink gel pen to the wall of your side of the the dorm, and one morning you found Peridot reading it with a watery gleam in her eyes. You had felt your heart threatening to claw its way from your rib cage until she had turned to you with something unreadable on her face and said,

“What the fuck, Lapis, that was beautiful.”

You were sure then that she must have known, but nothing changed. You continued on with your friendship as usual, until one morning a few weeks later when Peridot shoved a folded piece of notebook paper into your hands only a few minutes after you’d rolled from bed. Before you could ask what it was, she had practically sprinted into the bathroom. 

You sat down on the kitchenette counter, unfolded the paper, and began reading. By the time you finished, there were tears on your cheeks. On the page there was a short story, similar to yours but different in the best way. The prose ended with the first and only line of dialogue; a question, one character asking the other to travel the world with them by their side. A voice in the back of your head wanted to believe that question meant something, but you wouldn't let yourself believe it. You slid from the counter.

After drying your tears, you spoke. 

“Peridot, did you write this?”

From the bathroom her quiet voice replied, “Maybe.” Her blonde head poked out from behind the door. “It didn’t come out like I planned.”

“Shut up, that was beautiful. I’m literally crying,” you pointed out as you folded the paper back up and placed it on the table.

She’d stepped from the room the rest of the way, fingers tangled in each other. “Hey, uhm. The part at the end is- it’s actually... for you.”

Your whole body had frozen in place, chest dancing with hope you hadn’t dared to feel since that fateful night in the roller rink.

“Will you go out with me?”

Your entire universe had imploded in one sentence; time slowed down and sped up at once and you couldn’t remember speaking but your mouth was open and agape and you could tell from Peridot’s reaction that you must have forced out a frantic, enraptured  _ yes _ in your stupor. You had lifted her into your arms and spun her around like in the movies, laughing and smiling until your cheeks hurt as you gazed into that face you knew you’d gladly spend the rest of your life gazing at. 

“Can I kiss you?” you’d breathed as if it were a prayer.

“Yes, you clod.”

From then, it was all fun and games again. 


	2. Chapter 2

Two weeks later you were resting in bed with Peridot snuggled into you, curled around your torso like a boa constrictor. You were running your fingertips over the soft skin of the inside of her arm and she was stroking a thumb across your collarbone, lazily enjoying each other’s proximity. It was scary how quickly this felt normal, like the way it had always been meant to be.

“Hey Peri,” you said, breaking the silence, “how long did it take you write that story?”

“What story?” she hummed sleepily. You could feel the vibrations of her voice in your chest.

“The one you asked me out with.”

She seemed to sober a bit. “Uh. A few days at least?”

You breathed out a warm chuckle, remembering how anxious she had seemed hiding in the bathroom as you’d read it. “Did you know I had feelings for you?”

She sat up a bit, meeting your eyes with an odd look of amusement on her face. “Honestly, I thought we were dating already.”

Your mouth fell slack and you stared down at her. “Are you serious?”

“I figured we were just taking it really slow. I asked you out then to make sure we were on the same page.” She paused nervously, seemingly having more she wanted to say.

A few more seconds of silence prompted her to continue. “I wanted to be sure that the overwhelming feelings I had for you were- were what you wanted too.”

Okay, you’d definitely circle back to exactly how warm everything she'd just said made your insides but at the same time you couldn’t believe what you were hearing. You covered your face with your hands and laughed, loudly and incredulously.

“What?” she replied, brows drawing together in confusion.

“I spent so long angsting about how I was sure you didn’t like me back! And you did the whole time!”

She snickered smugly like the tiny blonde gremlin she was and you swatted her on the arm. “Asshole,” you said without a scrap of animosity behind it.

“Useless lesbian.”

“I hate you.”

“I love you too.”

* * *

One night a few months later, you and Peridot decided to spend the evening watching cheap horror flicks on Netflix with Chinese takeout on your laps. It was a good time; you would laugh at the poor excuses for acting and Peridot would beam with pride each time she predicted a plot point half an hour before it happened. It was still early when the two of you finished your food and your third movie of the evening.

“Wanna watch Carrie?” You’d asked over your shoulder toward where Peridot was in the kitchenette stretching her legs and getting a bottle of water.

She scoffed. “Stars, no. That ninety minute waste of time hardly deserves to be called a movie, much less a critically-acclaimed one.”

“Signs?”

“I’m not watching another M. Night Shyamalan movie with you.”

“Oh come one, it’s a good one! It’s actually kind of sappy, you’d love it.”

“Absolutely not.”

“The Gingerdead Man?”

“Are you kidding.”

“What, you don’t _love_ the truly impeccable acting of Mr. Gary Busey?”

“No. And certainly not when his face is superimposed on a CGI gingerbread man.”

“Actually I think he wore a gingerbread fursuit.”

“Lapis!” she retorted in a mix of revulsion and scolding.

You grinned shamelessly at her as she returned to the loveseat. “Well what do you suggest we watch?”

She huffed out a playful sigh and took the remote from your hands, flipping through the sad selection of films. She promptly highlighted a movie called Hostel and pressed play. You raised an eyebrow.

“It’s Quentin Tarantino. How bad can it be?”

You settled in as the movie began, propping your feet up on the coffee table. You lost track of how much time passed as the movie’s exposition dragged on for ages without anything interesting happening. Peridot had shifted and snuggled against your side, resting her head on your shoulder. You leaned your head on your folded forearm, feeling sleepiness start creeping into your muscles and clouding your mind.

Your eyelids had almost given up the fight to stay open when Peridot said something that made them open in surprise. “What kind of apartment do you want to get together?”

Your heart thumped heavily in your chest and you weren’t quite sure why. “Uh. I hadn’t thought about it.”

“What do you think about a renting a studio?”

A tired smile stretched across your face. “That’d be nice. Are you sure that would be enough room for your computer and all your nerd gadgets though?”

“It’s not as if it would be much different that the square footage of this dormitory. Plus there’s the added advantage of considerably less rent than a one-bedroom would typically go for in this area.”

You sat up straight at that, something warm and delicate humming in your veins. “In this area?”

“Yes, where else would we go?”

“I figured you’d want to move back home,” you whispered as if speaking it too loud would make it so.

“There’s never been much of anything worth clinging to in my family tree,” she said, and it surprised you how impassive she sounded; as if she were stating a fact as simple as the sky being blue rather than admitting something objectively heartbreaking.

“But you grew up there, you know your way around there. It’s not like there’s anything _here_ for you.”

You saw her look up at you from the corner of your eye. “Yes, there is.”

You met her impunitive gaze with a sort of guilty curiosity. “What’s that?”

“ _You,_ you clod.”

You blinked with wide, moonlike eyes, tongue suddenly drying up in the face of something so purely heartwarming that words failed you and all you had was emotion. You slowly enveloped her in a hug which she readily reciprocated, and you found that you didn’t need any words.

* * *

You rented a studio apartment four miles from the university during your junior year. Moving was easy with the help of your friend Steven, who had the build of a grizzly bear to go along with his teddy bear personality.

It was a cramped space, but you and Peridot found yourselves accustomed to it after years of living in the dorm. There were chips in the walls’ paint and cracks in the baseboards, only two burners on the stove actually lit and the already-installed window unit air conditioner wheezed like a dying cat whenever set cooler than seventy degrees. The neighbours above were always stomping, and you were fairly certain one of the downstairs tenants used their apartment as a drug den.

But it was your home, and within weeks of living there it was no longer the barren-looking shell of a residence you had seen in the apartment listing. Peridot’s avalanche of a computer desk took up an entire corner, and glow-in-the-dark cartoon alien stickers littered the walls and ceiling. The CRT television you had found at an antique store now squatted against one wall, with a pair of bunny-ear antennas on top and and your classic Super Nintendo console perched beneath in the IKEA entertainment center Peridot had spent two painstaking weeks refusing help building.

Much to Peridot’s chagrin, the bathroom was always inexplicably covered in sand from your countless trips to the nearby lake. (It was the closest thing to a beach in the nearby area, and being in the water had always soothed you.) The stove and kitchen counters were constantly splattered with pasta sauce and butter and garlic from whatever horribly-executed internet recipe Peridot had attempted to master that week, and your threadbare converse sneakers became an interior decoration where you always kicked them off by the door.

One night you brought home a pair of leather bean bag chairs you had found on someone’s curb. Peridot went on and on about health risks and the possibility of germs or bed bugs or syphilis, but she still fell asleep in front of the TV in them after work all the same.

As if the universe were paying you back for bringing something home without consulting Peridot, a few months later you came home from a late lecture to find her petting a bright orange corn snake curling around her forearm.

“Oh no,” you said immediately. “Peridot, no, we are not keeping that. Where did you even find it?”

“She was on sale at the pet store because no one wanted her. They said her colouration was ugly!”

“Yes, that’s very tragic, but how are we supposed to take care of a snake-”

“You mean with a terrarium of at least twenty gallons, an under-tank heating pad reaching around eighty-five degrees, shredded aspen or cypress substrate, and at least two dark, dry hides; one on the warm side, and one on the cool?”

“...fine. But I get to name her!”

And so Pumpkin the snake joined the Lazuli-Olivine household; your first child, as Peridot had called her. (Which sparked an entire conversation about human children in which you had gotten Peridot to compromise that you were to adopt no more than five.)

Your family expanded again when Peridot graduated from college and you surprised her with the parakeet the two of you had always talked about wanting- a chubby white and yellow bird that garnered four noise complaints from your neighbours before you gave in and bought a second to keep it company. With each passing day, your little apartment on Empire Street grew fuller and more crowded, but also somehow warmer. Even when you were roused from sleep at six in the morning by Meep and Morp throwing birdseed at you, there was no place you’d rather be.

* * *

You earned your doctorate in psychology at twenty-six. Peridot landed a fair-paying job as a coder for an AI-developing company that she loved, and together you had a savings account earmarked for a real house in the suburbs. You were still searching for a job you could make into a career, and your student loans begged payment every month, but things were okay. Stable, at least.

You had a network of friends that overlapped with Peridot’s friends; Steven’s three polyamorous mothers invited you both to dinner once or twice each month, and you were pleased to know your family accepted Peridot into their own as well. Peridot’s family was still mostly a mystery to you, and from what she had said on the few occasions she had talked of them, you decided you were okay it stay that way indefinitely.

Today is a cool day in autumn, and the moment you open your eyes from sleep you know what day it is. You’ve been keeping track; it’s your anniversary. Well, not your anniversary-anniversary, but rather, the anniversary of the day you met. You can still recall the moment Peridot first stumbled through the door of your dorm, and thank your lucky stars for that day every morning you wake in her arms.

You force yourself to stay in bed as she gets up, showers, and dresses. She kisses you on the forehead before she leaves for work, and you trade an _I love you_ as full of feeling as the first you ever uttered. She leaves, and you feed the birds and the snake and the cat (you should have known you’d acquire one sooner or later.) You spend two hours job searching on your laptop, but you can’t focus on anything you’re reading. Your mind is somewhere else.

You clean the entire apartment with headphones in, blasting a song you’ve heard a thousand and one times since you first introduced Peridot to it, hoping she’d understand you loved her if she really listened to the words. You wipe down the stove, you vacuum the carpet, you spray some foaming cleanser in the shower and toilet, you dust the sand from the bathroom floor again.

You hop in the car (you’d bought your own from a used car dealership during your sixth year of college) and drive to the store a few miles away. You buy a shopping basket’s worth of candles without bothering to smell them first. You go to the pharmacy and buy a cheap rose, long-stemmed and bright green. You sit in the park for a while, contemplating life. It’s almost sunset. You drive home.

You’re not sure where the time’s gone when you realize Peridot is due home in fifteen minutes. You crack your knuckles and get to work.

She walks into the apartment to see candles lit everywhere they will fit, and you  draped across your bean bag chair with the rose between your teeth. “Happy anniversary, Peri-dot,” you singsong.

“You didn’t have to do this, Lapis,” she chides with love in her eyes as she hangs up her coat.

“Oh, but I did.”

You stand up and press play on the Elvis song that is waiting on your phone. Soft music and caramel vocals begin, serenading Peridot, who instantly recognizes the tune.

_Wise men say, only fools rush in…._

“You romantic bastard, you know I love this song.”

“I do.”

_But I can’t help, falling in love with you..._

You extend a hand. “Dance with me?”

“You know I can’t dance,” she says softly.

_Shall I stay? Would it be a sin..._

“Try for me? Just a one-two step. I’ll lead.”

She tilts her head at you, with that gorgeous little smirk. “Alright, but I make no promises.”

_...if I cant help, falling in love with you…_

She moves her feet clumsily in time with yours, staring down at her shoes to make sure she doesn’t step on your toes. She wrinkles her nose. “What scent are these candles?”

“They’re all different,” you reply, grinning sheepishly.

_Like a river flows, surely to the sea…_

She rolls her eyes and laughs. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Because after all these years, I think you just might know me.”

_Darling so it goes, some things are meant to be…_

She lifts a hand to her chest in mock-horror. “No!”

You laugh and involuntarily snort, that choked noise you hate the sound of, and she fucking _smiles_ at it.

_Take my hand, take my whole life too…_

You know that it’s the moment. You break your gentle slow dance, reminiscent of that disastrous night in the roller rink. You sink to one of your knees.

“Peridot Olivine,” you fish that box that’s been taunting you all day from your pocket, “will you marry me?”

_For I can’t help, falling in love with you…_

There are tears in her eyes, reflecting the light of the countless candles surrounding you. “Thought you’d never ask.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes, you clod.”

You rise and surge forward, capturing her lips as your slide the pipe-cut ring with inlaid blue and green gemstones onto her tiny finger. Both of your faces are wet. She rests her head on your shoulder as you sway her, equal parts excited, terrified, and enamoured. And for once, finally, things are really okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> songfics? in _my_ 2018? it's more likely than you think

**Author's Note:**

> comrade-schlau.tumblr.com


End file.
